


The Golden Ratio

by shealynn88



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Artists, Fluff, Fluffy existential crisis, Love letter to artists, M/M, follow your passions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-17 05:36:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18958939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shealynn88/pseuds/shealynn88
Summary: Cas always wanted to be an artist, but he did the adult, practical thing.  Now he's started again, doing drawing exercises in the park during his lunch hour.He started noticing details. Light and shadow. How the small leaves of the rough hedges would drop shadows like lace. How the light shone on the edge of flat noses. How the brow ridge differed between the couple laughing together, how their smiles changed every angle of their faces, not just their mouths.And he noticedhim.The guy who sat near the fountain every day.  Who read or built small, intricate towers with plastic utensils, who never seemed in a hurry but always had an energy of purpose about him.





	The Golden Ratio

**Author's Note:**

> This is unadulterated, indulgent fluff. Enjoy.

He’s got grey at his temples now, and each day is sliding into the next like a template where only the date changes. His whole life could end like this - one day at the office after another, wrangling numbers for his company like they matter. Like he does. Like he’ll somehow be remembered. Castiel, the hero of accounting managers. 

He’d wanted to go to art school, but made the smart, adult choice.  Put away the childish things. Later, he’d told himself. Later, when he had the adult necessities - a home and a family, a cat and a nine to five with a 401K.

And now, later was here and he had the job.  The job and nothing else. 

* * *

The library had shelves dedicated to art instruction so he started with classics. Nicolaides and Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.  These were books his Drawing I instructor had recommended. He’d worked through part of The Natural Way to Draw once, but that had been a long time ago.

He started to bring a sketchpad in his briefcase; he’d take it to the park at lunch and do contours of the tables and chairs, his mug, his salad. His hand around a fork. 

He’d do gestural drawings of the people walking by. They looked like spiders at first - long limbs barely connected to the bodies he drew without looking down. He told himself it didn’t matter. It was training. This was how he got there. Where ever  _there_ was. Into a world where the days didn’t look like carbon copies of one another, he hoped. 

He started noticing details. Light and shadow. How the small leaves of the rough hedges would drop shadows like lace. How the light shone on the edge of flat noses. How the brow ridge differed between the couple laughing together, how their smiles changed every angle of their faces, not just their mouths. 

And he noticed  _him._ The guy who sat near the fountain every day.  Who read or built small, intricate towers with plastic utensils, who never seemed in a hurry but always had an energy of purpose about him.  He was beautiful. Face proportioned like every art book Cas had ever read - eyes at the center, mouth and nose at thirds. Rounded chin, carved jaw. But even being a textbook case, there was nothing commonplace about him. He was breathtaking and unique and stunning and everything Cas hadn’t known to want.

When he got into memory drawings, he tried to vary what he drew, but it typically came back to  _ him. _ Trying to get the angles right, the soft line of the rounded nose, the sharper line of the brow. The perfect almond of the eyes. 

Over a few weeks, he could see the improvement. The contours were more cohesive. The gesturals more proportionate.  The sketches from memory moving from stiff lines and bobble heads into something that worked together. Some of them even captured something the way he remembered. Quintessential and unique. 

And something else happened, too. Because when you looked at someone the way Cas watched  _ him, _ with that attention to detail and geometry and shine and shadow, it made an indelible impression. 

* * *

Cas dreams about him now. That smile. Those hands. That eyebrow quirk and that far off daydream gaze. The lines between his eyes when he concentrates, and in Cas’s dreams it’s when he talks about a new technique or a new artist he’s found, and those hands cup his face, and that look softens into something intimate when he meets Cas’s eyes.

Cas didn’t mean for it to happen like that. It feels invasive and sick. He doesn’t even know this man. The guy probably has a wife and family and here Cas is, fantasizing like a stalker. 

He captures something in a drawing that feels just right and too much and maybe a little shameful. Just  _ him, _ the nameless man, reading his book, teeth pressing into lower lip, expression curious and open. It’s an intimate portrait, but Cas doesn’t fool himself that it’s real art - just an amateur sketch, really. But it captures something real, like he finally found a way to scrape away a layer of skin and capture the reality underneath.  Soul.

He allows himself the small indulgence of pinning it up on his cork board, and he promises himself that he’ll find other subjects. It’s bordering on obsession, here, and he has to let it go.  For both of them.

It’s month end so he avoids the park while work is busy.  It’s a detox week, he thinks to himself. A week to get that ache out of his system, and then he can go back and point himself in another direction, and draw new features and new contours, get a different angle of shadow, a new backdrop of gazebo and billowing awnings. It’s a good idea in any case. He needs to keep challenging himself. 

The ache rises fresh and sharp as soon as he sits down. He allows himself a glance over his shoulder, takes in the new book, the same jeans and work boots, same immersed expression. 

Cas turns away and works on contours of shoulders and noses and eyes. All angles are compared to  _ his. _ Eyes wider, more teardrop than almond, narrower. Further apart. Nose longer. Chin more pointed. He takes a few days off features to concentrate on trees, buildings, awnings. 

The ache dulls. He considers taking the drawing off the cork board, but it’s still the best he’s done. It’s still  _ good. _ It still gets down to something real, and he hasn’t been able to capture that with anyone else.  Not yet.

So he leaves it, and another month goes by. The air starts to chill and he wears his trench coat to the park. His drawings are enormously improved. He feels accomplished. Even though no one else sees them, this is something he set his mind to and made happen. With his hands, his mind, his eyes. He’s creating something that never existed before. Numbers were always there. The answers are fixed and waiting to be reported. But here, he  _ creates _ the answers. They don’t exist until he puts them down, line after line, shadow after shadow. 

* * *

The day starts out poorly. He forgot to stop at the dry cleaners and now he’ll have to rush to pick up his jacket and tie before work, and then the washer in the apartment backs up and floods the alcove and into the living room.

He throws towels down to soak up the mess, tosses them into the bathtub and calls building maintenance as he’s leaving. 

“We’ll get someone over there this evening, sir,” they assure him. 

He’s still cinching his tie when Ruby knocks on his office door.

He waves her in impatiently and his shoulders fall as she hands him a letter.  She smiles apologetically and starts to explain, but he cuts her off with a kind word and a smile.

Her last day will be in two weeks, when she’d otherwise be gathering the numbers from the Maine office. 

He hopes his face shows something other than pure exhaustion.

When he gets home there’s an immediate knock behind him.  He hasn’t even removed his coat.

“One second,” he calls, shrugging the coat off as he opens the door.

He has a moment to think he’s going insane.  Another when he decides to slam the door shut, then another to think better of it.  He notices his mouth has dropped open so he closes it. Takes a moment to fold his coat carefully over his arm.  Buys time.

_ He _ stands there.  The man. From the park.   _ The man whose likeness is hanging in Cas’s living room. _

The man, who has a box of tools and is looking at him curiously.  “Hi,” he says finally, sticking out a hand. “I’m Dean. Management said you had an issue with your washer?”

“Hi.  Dean. I’m Cas. Tiel.  Yes. Yes, I did.”

“Great, let me just get in there and get a look under the hood.”  Dean chuckles at his own joke and walks past Cas.

Cas nearly vaults in front of him, positioning himself with forced nonchalance between Dean and the corkboard.  “It’s there, he says, pointing to the alcove. “It just flooded this morning.”

Dean nods.  “From the drain or from the machine?”

Cas looks at him blankly.  “From the...alcove?”

Dean chuckles again.  It’s a lovely sound. “Ah.  Right. Well, if you want to give me a few minutes, I’ll see what’s going on.”

If Cas steps out of the way, Dean is going to see the incredibly large and detailed portrait of himself.  On Cas’s wall. Like something a stalker would have. “Actually, why don’t you show me...how,” he manages.  “I’d, ah, hate to have you called out again for something like this. It can’t be too hard, right?” He winces when the words come out sounding dismissive.

Dean quirks an eyebrow.  “Sure. Okay. So, first, we’ll start the washer again, and then see where the water comes from.  You want to do that?”

Cas can’t change his position, so he shakes his head and gestures vaguely at his suit.  “Oh, I’m still...for work…”

Dean’s brows quirk dangerously downward, creating deep furrows between them.  His lips thin, and it’s an expression Cas hopes he never sees again. He really is offending the hell out of this guy he just managed to stop having a crush on.  Well, stopped and then started again because he’s  _ here. _  Dean is here.  In Cas’s apartment.  With a name. And his eyebrows and his eyes and his expressive mouth and the jeans he wears everyday and the work boots Cas has drawn a million times from memory, and the black t-shirt and a flannel - blue and green, today - they are all in Cas’s apartment.  Being offended because Cas is an idiot.

Dean turns back to him after starting up the washer and they wait for it together, awkwardly quiet.

“So, thanks for showing me,” Cas says to fill the void, and it sounds even stupider out loud.  “I’m not really technical about this stuff. Anything, really. Numbers are my things. Accounting.  It’s awful. I hate it.”  _  Please stop talking.  Oh my God, stop talking. _

Dean looks amused, now.  “Well, uh, you’re making a good case to stay out of it, so thanks.  That was my next career choice.”

“Really?”  Cas is confused for a moment, and then he smiles weakly.  “You’re kidding. Funny.”

“ _ I _ thought so.  No, I’m more of a hands guy,” Dean says.  His eyes go slightly wide and he shakes his head.  “I  _ work _ with my hands, that is. Cars.  Handyman stuff. Woodworking. Mostly cars.  This stuff,” he waves a hand vaguely to encompass the apartment building, “This is supplemental.  College don’t pay for itself.”

“Oh, what are you going for?”

Dean smiles.  “Oh, not me. My little brother.  He’s the smart one - law. I figure I do the work now and he’ll be my retirement plan.”

Dean.  This gorgeous man who was built based on the golden ratio is putting his brother through college.  And he’s doing it by building things. And fixing things. And getting dirty under cars, and that is an image Cas needs to carve out of his head right now.   _ Right now. _  “That’s great,” he manages.  “Your brother is a lucky kid.”

“Ha.  I’ll tell him you said so, maybe he’ll take it from you.”

The washer starts to drain, and they’re interrupted by the sound of water leaking onto the floor.

Dean spins back around and crouches down, then checks behind the machine and hits the button to stop the cycle.

“You got some towels?” he asks Cas, continuing to peer behind the machine.

“Um, yeah,” Cas says.  “I’ll get it in a minute.  Do you think you can fix it?”

“Yeah, the drain is just plugged.  I’ll snake it. Should only take a second.  Do you want to grab some towels while I do that?”

“Oh, I’ll...I’ll watch.  So I know how to do it next time.”

Dean looks back at him.  “You planning on a repeat performance?”

Cas does his best not to wilt. He is potentially making the worst first impression ever in the history of first impressions.  “Preferably not. But I don’t know why this happened.”

Dean shrugs and pulled a few things out of his tool box in order to remove something that looked like a massive tape measure.  “Lint buildup, probably. Ready for the big finale?” He snickers and Cas smiles weakly.

“Show me,” Cas says, gesturing at the washer.

Dean climbs on top of the washer and Cas moves in close - not close enough to actually see, since that would take him out of the line of sight of the corkboard.  But at least close enough that he can pretend.

It takes an embarrassingly short amount of time.  Dean pushes the metal end of the snake in, cranks a wheel a few times, and then hops off the washer and turns it back on.

No flood.

“That...you make it look so easy,” Cas says.

Dean shrugs.  “The right tools make it easy.  No big deal. Maybe you stick to numbers and I’ll do the plumbing. That way we both have a job.”  He winks and lifts his eyebrows and it almost looks like flirting.

Cas swallows hard and smiles.  “That might be best.”

He follows Dean to the door, finally able to relax a little bit.  “Dean, thank you so much. It really was a huge help and I’m really sorry if I was acting oddly.  I had a really hard day today.”

“Did it get better?”  Dean’s smile edges on flirtatious again, and Cas studiously ignores the acrobatics his stomach is attempting.

Cas nods.  “It absolutely did.”

“Oh!” Dean says suddenly, and moves past Cas back into the living room before Cas registers what's happening.  Dean’s voice comes from the living room. “I forgot to grab -  _ oh." _

Cas catches up  _ way  _ too late.  Dean is bending down to grab the tools he left on the floor, and he’s staring at the drawing on the corkboard.

“Oh. Wow. That’s...something.”

Cas can feel heat rising through his entire body. He’s on fire. He wishes it was literal because then his suffering would end. “That’s - I’m just - I sketch people - lots of -  _ different _ people -.”  He makes it a million times worse when he clarifies, “I don’t draw you anymore -“  He stops himself with a Herculean effort. 

Dean looks at him, mouth working like a fish, then closing with a near audible snap.  His expression is somewhere between suspicion and awe. The lines between his brow are prominent and his mouth quirks slightly at the corner, changing the shadow under his lip and the angle of the line that defines the apple of his cheek. 

He finishes putting his tools in the toolbox, and his face is pink, though Cas can only assume that it doesn’t approach the depth of his now patented crawl-under-a-rock-and-die shade of red.

“Okay, well, bye,” Dean manages weakly as he hastens out the door.  Cas stays well out of his way and closes the door only after the elevator at the end of the hall dings.

Yes.  Officially the worst first impression in the history of the world.

* * *

He doesn't go back to the park.  It’s strictly off limits, now. He’s so mortified that he takes the drawing down and sets it in a drawer.  He still can’t bring himself to destroy it. It’s the best thing he’s done, and that  _ means _ something.

He finds a new place for lunch, a little cafe that looks out on the street and has some interesting sculptures that work well for weight studies.  His skills are still improving. More slowly, now, but sometimes he gets a spark. Something in a few lines that change the brow, the line of a chin, the quirk of a lip, until they really  _ evoke _ something, and that feels incredible.  Work is what he does to earn a paycheck but this is what he does to feel alive.  

Creating.

“Mind if I sit?”

Cas jumps, pencil scratching across the page.

He turns slowly and knows from the moment he sees the boots, the jeans, that he was not mistaken.  That was Dean’s voice. These are Dean’s clothes. This is Dean’s perfect face. Which has somehow found him in this cafe...or maybe this is Dean’s cafe.   _ Oh, God. _

“I’m sorry, let me just…” he starts gathering up the drawings and stuffing them in his sketchbook.  He’s going as fast as he can, and the blush is rising in his face and he doesn’t know if he’ll survive this level of constant horrified embarrassment.  He wonders how quickly he can move to another state. “I didn’t know you came here,” he mumbles.

Dean sits and is just a solid, quiet presence until Cas looks up.  Dean smiles. 

That ache flares up again. Cas’s eyes catch and hold on the line of Dean’s lip, pulling his mouth off center.  It looked odd the first twelve times Cas drew it, and then he realized that it changed everything about that side of Dean’s face, the cheek, the eyebrow, the line of the hair.  

“Hi,” Cas finally says.

“Hi.”  Dean smiles and averts his eyes.  He presses his lips together, like he needs to say something but doesn’t know quite what to say. 

There’s nothing Cas can do to help him.  He’s still trying to convince his heart not to make a mad dash for the door without him.

“You’re a hard man to find.”

“I…”  He hadn’t meant to be.  He’d assumed he wouldn’t have to be unfindable, just out of a reasonable radius of the park.  “Why...are you finding me?”

Dean took in a breath to speak, let it out again.  “How…” He starts again. “Why…” He laughs self-consciously.  “This was all very smooth and 007 when I imagined it,” he says.

Cas laughs before he can think better of it.

“That drawing.  In your apartment.  That was...crazy.”

Cas holds up a hand.  “I know, I’m so sorry-”

“Cas!”  Dean grabs his hand and presses it against the table. The touch short-circuits every thought.  Words die in Cas’s throat. 

“That’s not what I meant.  I mean - no one sees me like that.  _ I _ don’t see me like that.”

“I’m not very good, I’m just learning - “

“Dude!  Shut up for a minute!”

Cas shuts up.

“I’m trying to say it was  _ good. _  Like….’hard to look at,’ good.  It was like...seeing myself the way I  _ want  _ to be, the way that no one else knows about and somehow, that me is hanging in some stranger’s living room.  It’s like I’m naked out there. Like you see something that I don’t really let out.” He ducks his head and lets out a short laughter.  “My turn to sound crazy.”

“No!”  Cas lowers his voice as Dean looks up.  “No. I mean...I think that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”  He’s blushing, he can feel it, and he wonders if there will ever be a time Dean will see him with his face a normal color.  “If it helps, you’re the only one who’s seen that. Any of it.” He pats his sketchbook.

“Can I look?”  Dean nods at the sketchbook and Cas stiffens.

There’s a lot of sketches in there, of a lot of different people.  But he’s still got one person very much on his mind, and there are a lot of Dean in there.  Studies of eyes - green, he sees now, though it’s all greys and blacks in the book - and plaids, and boots, and fine smile lines, studies of collars and one of collarbones, and he’s feeling desperately presumptuous and uncomfortable now.

He whimpers a little and pushes the book over.  “I’m not very good,” he repeats, and Dean waves him away.

“Let me be the judge of that.”  And then he looks up suddenly and his expression is set and serious, like he’s about to reveal universal secrets.  “No. No, don’t let  _ anyone  _ be the judge of that.  That’s all bullshit. No one gets to judge it but you.”

Then he looks away and Castiel is stunned and entranced and if Dean walks away again it will break his stupid fool heart.   _ When _ Dean walks away again.

Cas holds his breath as Dean flips through the pages.  Dean smirks when he finds figures he knows are him, then studies without comment where there are features that perhaps only Cas knows are his.  He traces a line here and there, the long line of a woman walking swiftly across the crosswalk - Cas had been really happy with that line; it had movement to it, it captured something - and another of a man with a child on his shoulders, a slash of graphite defining his smile.

“I know I just said don’t listen to me, but these are great,” Dean said quietly.  “Thanks for letting me see.” He grins. “Now that I’ve seen your secrets, we’re even.”

Cas nods quickly, a short acknowledgement.  He’s not sure what just happened, but he thinks...are they friends, now?

“If I grab a coffee, will you still be here when I come back?”

Cas nods.

Dean comes back with a coffee in a mug - you have to ask for one, and Cas appreciates that he did.  He abhors litter.

“So, Cas.  Tell me, what should a guy know about you?”

Cas shrugs uncomfortably and scours his head for traits or facts that Dean might find interesting. There is literally _nothing_. “I'm Castiel. I’m forty-three. I’m..." He laughs softly, embarrassed. "I'm not good with people." 

Dean lifts his eyebrows and nods encouragingly until Cas stutters on. "I, ah, I wanted to go to art school but it wasn't practical so..." He waved a hand dismissively. "And, as you have probably guessed, I can’t fix an appliance or a car to save my life. I mean, I used a drill once and nearly put a screw through my brother’s foot." He shrugged again, looking over Dean's shoulder. "But I, ah, I like art. Looking at it and creating it. I like... _creating_ answers instead of just... _finding_ them.”

“A fine okcupid profile you’ve got there.  Poetic.” Dean grins, and it lights up his whole face, narrows his eyes, brings out those fine lines Cas loves to mark with quick flicks of his pencil.

“Okay what?”

Dean lifts an eyebrow.  “Okcupid? It’s a dating site.”

Cas laughs weakly.  “Oh. Dating isn’t really...my thing.  But I’ll keep that in mind.”

Dean tips his head.  “‘Isn’t your thing’ like...you don’t?”

“No.”  Cas looks down, studying his coffee intently.  “‘Isn’t my thing’ like, I don’t really have much time and I haven’t met anyone.  Before.”  _ Before now. _

“But if you  _ did  _ meet someone.  Someone you kind of liked.  At, like, a cafe, maybe?”

Cas shifts uncomfortably.  The knot in the wood of the table is suddenly fascinating.  “Yeah. Maybe then.”

“Maybe?”

Cas looks up, trying to judge Dean’s expression without  _ actually  _ looking at him.  He looks amused but sincere, and Cas releases an explosive breath.  “Definitely.”

* * *

He learns the curve of Dean’s collarbone with his eyes, and then with his fingers, studies the lines of shoulder blade and the curve of the trapezius muscle.  Later, extends his attention to the dip of the iliac furrow, which collects beautiful shadows in the morning light and tastes like sunrise.

He draws Dean again and again.  From memory and from life, and then hangs his likeness in the living room without shame.

“They’re beautiful,” Dean tells him.

“You’re beautiful,” he says, and they’re both right.

“You should let other people see,” Dean whispers against his shoulder.  Fingers smooth down the line of his spine, tuck into his back pocket.

“Only if you do,” Cas tells him. 

There are small carvings and creations scattered around the apartment.  The largest, two clasped hands, holds a place of honor on the bookcase. They still take Cas’s breath away.

It happens in it’s own time, and it happens for them both together - as most things do, now.  They get a two-man show in a small gallery outside of town. They leave the opening early to find their way into the trees and kiss softly, laughing disbelief into each other’s mouths.

Every risk Cas ever took is worth this - the way that he can  _ see  _ Dean now, in the slanting light through the trees.  The way that Dean’s eyes narrow with joy and his face softens and is open and beautiful and  _ true. _

“I love you,” Cas whispers into that smile, and it’s everything.

Nothing is certain.  Nothing is promised. No day is trusted to a template.  

It’s all the things Cas never dared to dream when he decided at eighteen what being an adult should be, and it’s _so much better._


End file.
